UPG CHILDCARE CENTER

The University of Virginia Physicians Group, a private foundation formed to serve the needs of the University of Virginia Health System, identified providing high quality childcare as one of its most urgent needs. UPG hired brwarchitects to work with Bright Horizons for the design and construction of a new Childcare Center which will serve 154 children. The 17,000 sf facility is designed on a tight suburban site which required maximizing the available outdoor play areas for each age group. brwarchitects created a facility which provides every classroom of the two story building with direct access to an exterior play yard, generous amounts of natural light, and common spaces designed to provide varying experiences of scale. The design of each space has been tailored to respond to the age and perceptions of each group of children. Materials, finishes and even the landscape design have been coordinated to reinforce the theme of ‘Growing Healthy Lives’. The design of the new Childcare Center reflects UPG’s historical links to Thomas Jefferson’s University and corporate vision of Responsibility, Integrity, Stewardship, and Excellence.

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GREEN MOUNTAIN STATION

‘Not your grandmother’s farmhouse!’ This has been the goal the owner’s have had from the beginning of the design process for creating a ‘generational’ home on 450 acres south of Charlottesville. With references to the arts and crafts homes they had come to appreciate, the main house reinforces ‘that moment in the landscape’ where the site transitions from intimate pastures and fields of the approach drive to the distant views of Mont Alto to the northeast. The central ‘great room’ with panoramic views of the landscape is flanked by a music room and formal dining dining room. The formality transitions to informal settings for the the master bedroom wing and study to the west and the kitchen and family dining to the east. The stone, stucco, and clay tile palette of materials embraces the visitor as they approach the home providing an intimate and welcoming entrance to the home. A pool and pool house are located along a walking path that leads to the surrounding farm. Under construction beginning in 2011, with completion in early 2014.

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HIGH STREET UNITED METHODIST

Having outgrown their original facility, the congregation desired a facility which would honor their long history in downtown Franklin while providing a vision for future generations. The classically inspired design organizes a series of interior gathering spaces which emphasize a sense of unity. A sense of the sacred is created by the barrel vaulted nave spanning over a radially organized seating configuration. The chancel’s laterally positioned lancet windows and new rose window recall the history of the gathered church, augmenting the relocated historic stained glass windows now seen in the new transept. Educational and administrative facilities are equipped with linked state of the art media and communication resources, further enhancing the investment in the church’s future generations.

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THE CROSSINGS AT FOURTH AND PRESTON

The Crossings at Fourth and Preston is brwa’s first venture into the design of Single Resident Occupancy housing. The facility will provide housing for sixty residents and a full time manager. The building is situated at the intersection of Fourth Street NW and Preston Avenue. The Crossings is a quintessential urban building with a frontage on Fourth Street of over two hundred feet. The proximity of the building, being set back ten feet from the sidewalk creates a true urban feel and will contribute to the urban fabric of the neighborhood. The project will carry an Earth Craft Multi Family Housing Certification and will include photo voltaic roof panels to supply 20% of the electricity for the facility. Additionally, the design also features roof top solar hot water panels.

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BRODY CENTER

Located in a historic neighborhood a short walk from UVA’s grounds, the Hillel Jewish Student Center needed to add space for new and expanded programs while being sensitive to its surroundings. brwarchitects fit the addition comfortably to the scale of the surrounding residential neighborhood while articulating its own distinctive character. Design cues for both scale, proportion, and material were taken from the existing 20th century residence. Mediating the existing and new buildings is the multi-purpose dining hall detailed with walls of glass and dark steel allowing the two more traditional volumes to reinforce the scale of the historic neighborhood.

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GRACE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

In 1845, the sanctuary was built to be a long-lasting example of a House of God. More humble, the 1920s Parish house rests in a delicate balance with the stone sanctuary and the rural landscape. brwarchitects designed a new Parish Hall to blend seamlessly with the original house, in detail and construction, while simultaneously being unseen from the sanctuary. The original Parish house library is transformed into a generous lobby, adjoining the new timber-framed Parish Hall.

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BELMONT LOFTS

The Belmont Lofts, which occupy the edge between the industrial rail-yard and the residential patterns of upper Belmont, are intended to evoke the historic ‘warehouses’ lining the city’s railroad. Containing forty-two residences while perserving a unique 3-acre urban forest home to a variety of indigenous trees, the Lofts create an urban edge to the neighborhood. ‘The Neighborhood Garden’ provides a carefully located series of cultivation plots for residents to grow vegetables and flowers. The impact of automobiles on the site is minimized to preserve the majority of the property for the natural park area. The units within the buildings vary to include studio units and luxury penthouses with roof terraces providing direct views of Monticello and the historic downtown area. The Lofts provided a civic catalyst to the neighborhood leading to a vigorous revival of commerce in downtown Belmont, referred to as Charlottesville’s “Brooklyn”.

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POPE'S CREEK

Located on a 60 acre promontory along the Potomic River, this residence will engage both the rural landscape and the river beyond. Organized along an east west axis and open to the views of the river beyond, the stone and whitewashed brick residence is organizied into two zones. The more formal public dining, living, and sun porch provide a setting for family dinners, evenings in the living room and sunsets in the sun porch and afternoon garden to the west. The informal living area centered around the kitchen, breakfast room, and family room provide a gracious setting for the family for everyday activities. The master bedroom suite provides magnificent views across the pool to the Potomac beyond. The bedrooms for the children are associated with the centeral two over two portion of the home. Guest quarters are located above the garage and on the second floor of the pool house. Sustainable systems including geo thermal heating and cooling, solar hot water, preconditioning of hvac systems, and photovoltaic panels allow for the home to be minimally dependent on the public power grid.

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COVENANT SCHOOL

The joint venture of Wardell/Boney Architects was selected as the winning design for the Covenant School through a design competition. The campus is comprised of a 96,000 SF school, athletic fields, parking and a future performing arts center, set on the largest rise of the 24-acre site to afford them visual prominence. Designed as a quadrangle, the central green is shared by the four academic houses, each serving 135 students. Each house has a locker commons and study lounge, designed as classical pavilions overlooking the soccer fields beyond. The main entry lobby reinforces the combination of modern educational resources in the context of a classical tradition.

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UVA CCU ARLINGTON

The University of Virginia Community Credit Union on Arlington Blvd renovated a tired-looking mid-20th century office building into an updated and forward thinking home for one of their branch offices. Composite metal panels and frameless glass walls wrap the welcoming new lobby space and open it up to Arlington Blvd. Combined with more energy-efficient floor to ceiling storefront windows and metal spandrel panels, these elements provide a clean, professional, and contemporary face to the building. Inside, a fresh materials palette, brand new mechanical systems, and large windows all contribute to an improved working environment.

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DOUGLAS AVENUE TOWNHOMES

Conceived as a collective of townhomes expressing individual program and spatial needs of the residents, these four homes occupy a small infill site on the northern edge of the Belmont neighborhood. Taking advantage of the post-industrial landscape and associated open space created by the adjacent CSX railroad tracks, each unit includes multiple windows to capture both natural light and the unique views of the downtown area available at this location. A simple exterior material palette and landscaping help unify the collection of homes, despite their expressive massing and varying sizes, entry sequences, and program. Two of the homes contain additional lower floor accessory rental units based on urban models of ‘brownstone’ developments common to larger cities in the northeast.

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ARCH'S FROZEN YOGURT

The owners of Arch’s Frozen Yogurt desired a sustainably designed modern building to reinforce their presence in the busiest commercial corridor in Charlottesville. Pedestrian traffic was encouraged by placing the building forward on the site with inviting exterior patios and decks, which provide unique views of the commercial corridor and the woods adjoining the site. The two-story structure has decks, patios and landscaping at each end, and is covered by a roof with large overhangs to manage the South-facing solar orientation. The façade incorporates large expanses of glass to allow the inside activity to be viewed from the street, creating a connection with the urban corridor. The overall design of the structure used innovative applications for the wall and roof panels to shorten the time of construction. Passive solar design, mechanical systems and landscaping incorporatted sustainable and green-building strategies were into the design of the building.

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HOSPICE HOUSE

Hospice of the Piedmont purchased one of the grand old homes on Park Street north of Charlottesville which had become a twenty two bed nursing home. Their intention was to restore the elegance and graciousness of the original home in order to provide and eight bedroom residence for their Hospice clients. brwarchitects restored the Victorian home stripping out the earlier renovations and building back the house from its foundations and original structural ‘bones.’ A new addition, deferring to the prominence of the original house, provides additional client rooms, family support spaces and overnight accommodations, and common rooms for dining, preparing meals, and spending time with family members. An elevator provides accessibility throughout the house and the front porch has been resotred to its orignal detail.

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A COUNTRY RESIDENCE

The owners had just moved to Charlottesville, had triplets and found that their formal Virginia farmhouse needed to provide family living spaces for their family of six. brwarchitects designed additions and renovations which opened their living areas to the magnificent views of the Blue Ridge mountains to the west. Improvements included a new office, support spaces, a three car ‘carraige barn’ and a family room open to the rear landscape and mountain views. The original formality of the house is respected while providing a much more informal setting for the family and young children to enjoy. The simple detailing of the Virginia farmhouse is extended to a broad western blue stone terrace where a screened porch and outside dining area allow for the family to engage the rural landscape beyond.

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FLUVANNA RESIDENCE

The owner’s had begun to transform their 125 acre farm into a vineyard along the southern slope leading to a lake and stream. Across the lake they asked brwarchitects to design their home to maximize the view of the vineyard and the lake. Using design and planning principals from some of the great English country homes, the design provides a series of grand public living spaces visually conntected to the gardens, lake, and vineyard. The carraige house provides an intimacy to the front entrance court while protecting the privacy of the gardens and pool beyond. The inteior design responds to the eclectic tastes of the owner from the contemporary kitchen to the strikingly blue study. The relationship between the traditionally designed exteior with the highly personal interior design carries on the tradition of a highly personal country residence.

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COLLECTION : NEW MODEST CONSTRUCTION

On any budget, good design can and should take advantage of the characteristics of the site, the availability natural light, efficient organization of space, and an understanding of the best qualities of each material choice. With each project we undertake for our residential clients, no matter the scale or budget, our firm delivers a level of service that takes advantage of each of these opportunities, while maintaining a firm understanding of the resources available. Only through a collaborative process of design and decision making that balances the various goals of each client can we help create an enjoyable and rewarding building project for the homeowner. Typically, we initiate our design efforts by listening to each homeowner describe their ideal home. Through this conversation and a series of questions to follow we are better able to realize the opportunities offered by the site and develop design ideas for further discussion. Building on this strong foundation and relationship, our understanding of your goals, and an analysis of the site, we can confidently continue the dialogue as the project evolves from idea to reality.

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ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISSI

Bridging between two buildings of different vintage and architectural styles, the new parish hall for St. Francis of Assissi needed to remain understated and subtly detailed. With boundaries defined by the adjoining buildings’ exterior walls, the new parish hall creates an interstitial space where the entire parish can gather. One sees stone buttresses of the 1895 sanctuary recalled in the rhythmic glass and steel of the “gothic” trellis. These buildings define a new courtyard piazza as the centerpiece of extensive landscape and facility improvements throughout the church’s urban campus, unifying the campus, relegating the cars to the periphery and reinforcing the ‘civic’ place where the church gathers.

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COLLECTION : RENOVATIONS & ADDITIONS

As our lives change, often our requirements for our spaces change as well. Renovating an existing home or adding rooms can improve your quality of life, providing additional family rooms, enlarged kitchens, mudrooms, garages, porches, or additional bedrooms. Here at brwarchitects, we enjoy helping you identify how your house can become your home.

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HARBORVIEW

Harborview Medical Center needed to provide new facilities for the growth of their long-established medical practices. The 22,000SF addition, designed by brwarchitects, added a waiting area and snack bar, creating the vestibule for these new medical offices. The addition allows for future vertical expansion while relating the new additions to the scale of the original rotunda. Tying the building to the site, highly reflective glass maximizes the natural presence of the wetland landscape. The clinical area and rehabilitation facility are clad with brick masonry using a proportional system consistent with the adjacent surgery center, deferring to the architectural style of the original building.

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COLLECTION : INTERIORS

With careful attention to finishes, budget, and details, each project creates a distinct, singular space that increases productivity while complimenting each client’s functional and aesthetic needs, thus creating a better working environment. From the early phases of programming, schematic design, and facility evaluation, through the latter phases of construction documents, administering construction, and occupancy assitance, attention to detail and service are consistent characteristics of our work.

We have completed many projects, including office remodels for companies like UVIMCO, Signature Medical Spa, and CFA Institute. Often these projects are complex due to phasing, furniture coordination, construction administration, and matching existing conditions and finishes.

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COLLECTION : MEDICAL OFFICE BUILDINGS

Our medical practice encompasses projects of all sizes, from full facilities to doctor’s offices. We are experienced in various types of medical practices, including Orthopedics, Cardiology, Pediatrics, Dentistry, and Family Practice. In addition to designing the architectural space, we can assist with the selection of furniture, custom cabinetry, nurse’s stations, and the placement of equipment. We will help to provide a warm and practical space for any type of medical facility.

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CENTER FOR CHRISTIAN STUDY

The Center for Christian Study, set in a residential area adjacent to the grounds of the University of Virginia, needed to expand its facilities. The Center needed to accommodate meeting space for 125, a library, reading room, research stations, new offices, and residential facilities for interns. Site constraints required that any new construction occur to the rear of the existing building. The relationship between the addition and the existing context was of paramount importance. The massing and symmetry of the original house is mirrored in the addition, separated by a painted wood and glass connector that is differentiated from both masses. An exterior staircase, enclosed by horizontal cedar matching the existing house allows direct access to the addition from the street. The stairway marks the addition with a metaphorical lighthouse as entry to the study and reading room.

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TEMPLE BETH ISRAEL

Congregation Beth Israel, in Charlottesville, Virginia added new educational and worship facilities to their existing 19th century building, the tenth oldest synagogue in the country. These new facilities increased the floor area three-fold. Recognizing the need to respect the existing structures and urban context, the design creates a ‘village’ of smaller structures. A modern steel and glass lattice bridges between the new and existing construction, allowing the social hall to have a dramatic view of the surrounding urban landscape– a reminder of the community within which they live and worship.